


Just A Graze

by HTFNoelle



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, One Shot, Tragedy, Zombie Bite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6409879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HTFNoelle/pseuds/HTFNoelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heroes are supposed to have deaths with meaning, but this is the zombie apocalypse. Bad things just happen. Not everyone can have a good death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Graze

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for suicide, while it is not actually depicted in this work it is heavily implied. Spoilers for season 2 & 3.

It was a normal day, which in itself almost seemed abnormal, come to think of it. How many days had there been recently with unforeseen disasters or world changing discoveries? Mind control existed! How were you supposed to have a normal day after that? It had been hard enough when it was only the zombie apocalypse. Everything with Comansys, everything since the day Runner Five had killed Van Arc, all of it. It had been completely overwhelming. 

He couldn't really let himself get bogged down, after all. Sam had the sneaking suspicion that the only way he was going to make it through all this, that any of them were going to make it through this was by moving forward. Looking back or stopping, that had to wait. Now wasn't the time or the place for such things.

He couldn't stop, but it was days like today that let him catch his breath. Days where he could fall into routine and let himself slow down just a little. There hadn't even been much on the docket. A few experiments to test the calming plants and a couple supply runs for the doctor. As long as if he didn’t think about how she wasn’t the right doctor. If he just pretended the experiments were for a different McShell, it was almost nostalgic.

Although Runner Four spraining her ankle hadn't been the best, especially when she and Runner Five had just left Abel ten minutes before. But Four had been able to make it back without too much trouble, and Five had continued on without her. Not as much would be gathered, but it was better than nothing.

Plus, Five was taking her sweet time cherry picking exactly what the doctor had asked for, rather than the usual grab and run. Too much time, really.

"Five, hurry up, will you? Sunset's just around the corner. I think we both had enough night running to last a lifetime."

Through the headcam, he saw Five's fingers still a moment, "How long 'til sunset?"

Sam checked the clock for the tenth time that minute, "Enough, so long as you leave right now."

"Alright. Lemme just—" Five swept a load of medicine bottles off the shelf and into her backpack with a flourish and a dreadful clatter. He saw a few previously aimless shamblers turn their eyes toward the pharmacy from his cameras.

"Five!"

"Doc wanted a certain type of sleeping med, but 'sunset's just around the corner'. Now she gets them all. Where do I go?" The zip of the backpack seemed entirely too loud, and he saw a few more shamblers perk up as she swung it across her shoulders.

"Out the back and take a right, quickly. You're going to have zoms coming through the front any second now. Good job on attracting them, by the way! That was very necessary."

Five was out before he'd finished the reprimand, "Do what I can. Where to next?" Her voice was clipped. Five's voice was always clipped, at least when running. As quick and to the point as a nail, or something like it. A very pointy nail. A very pointy nail that actually turned out to be quite good company when it wasn't running for its life from zombies. So not really like a nail at all, now that he thought about it.

He shook himself free of that bungled metaphor and turned his mind back to chartering Five's route, "Down to the stoplight, then make a left, don't slow down. Speed up if you can. You've left the shamblers in the dust, but there's more coming up, and you zipping past will probably attract their attention."

He saw her teeth flash in a smile through a cam, heard "Can do." through the mic and then—

He hadn't seen the zom. Neither had Five. Who would ever have expected it to be shut in a dustbin? Who would have even been ready when it leaped out?

Five was fast, lightning fast. With her free hand, the one it hadn't grabbed, hadn't— she drew her pistol and fired. It dropped like a stone, dead for good.

It had been a couple seconds, maybe three, and he'd only seen the blur of movement. But now he could see clearly through the headcam. The dead zom on the ground, the bloody bite mark it had left on Five's wrist.

Everything seemed to go completely, deathly quiet, except for a roaring in his ears. He stared at the wound, uncomprehending. It was Five. Five! There was no way.

"Sam." Five's voice was clipped, as it always was. It really didn't sound all that different from usual. It should have though. Shouldn't it? 

"Sam, you see this, right?" A thread of desperation had crept into it now.

"Of course I do."

"It's a—"

"Yea, I know, Five. I—I know what it is."

Silence stretched for a few moments, and Sam wasn't sure if it would have ever ended, if not for the moan of some shamblers, no doubt attracted by the gunshot and the blood.

"I can't die here, Sam." He almost missed the whispered words. Whispered, shaky words that held far too much sadness for his heart to bear.

"Five…"

"I need to die somewhere else. Somewhere Abel can retrieve my—the supplies."

Five was staring at her pistol, knuckles white around it, as the sounds of approaching zoms got ever louder, "I don't have long, yea? Not long enough to go to Abel. I…I don't want to go to Abel. Where do I go, Sam?"

He could still see Five's wrist, dripping scarlet tears onto the cracked concrete beneath. Somehow he dragged his gaze away. His eyes roved over the screens, charting a course.

"Turn on your noise maker and drop it on the ground, then down the alley opposite you, and take a left."

She'd started running before he finished.

 

* * *

 

"Take a right here, you'll have to dodge a few crawlers but then you'll have a clear path otherwise."

Five did as he instructed. She hadn't talked for the last ten minutes. The only sound he'd heard was her increasingly ragged breathing. He was surprised she hadn’t coughed yet, but it would happen eventually. Her heart was beating quickly, circulating the virus even quicker.

It was a matter of time, which seemed so very much more precious with each moment of it that passed, and he'd let ten priceless minutes slip through his fingers with nothing more than a few directions, but he just didn't know what to say, and Five, well...

Five wasn't like him. Sam talked when he was scared, when he was worried. Talked about nothing or everything or anything at all to fill the air around him. As long as he could talk he could think and if he could think then everything would, somehow, be alright.

Five got quiet instead. She thought, strategized, waited for the right moment to act. Usually it worked out fine. She would listen to his frantic ramblings, but now Sam didn't know what to say, and so time kept slipping by. Each irreplaceable second ticking away without comment. Without note.

"A left, and you'll have a straight shot out of town."

Five turned, and after another minute the countryside started to appear, lush and overgrown, through the headcam. "Where to after that?" She asked. Sam flinched. Her voice was rough, rasping in his ears. 

He swallowed and said, "There's a beech tree by the petrol station down the road. Massive. You know it, I'm sure. Lots of low branches, easy to climb..." She wasn't looking at her wrist any longer, and none of his other cams had enough detail to see more than a red blur, but the memory of it was very clear, "So long as you can climb, what with—"

"It's just a graze. I'll be fine, for climbing, anyway. My hand still works." Five stifled a cough, "I know the tree. It's... pretty. And old. Really, really bloody old and gnarled as all hell."

"Do you want me to find a younger tree, then? Less, uh, gnarled?" Sam wasn't quite sure what he was even saying. He was just sure he couldn't let the silence fall again.

She laughed, it sounded like more of an odd sounding cough, if anything, but definitely leaning in the area of being a laugh, "No. That's what makes it pretty. Plus, if it's young it won't—" her mouth snapped shut over the last few words.

__

‘It won't be tall enough.’

Because it had to be tall, didn't it? Tall and sturdy enough to support Five's weight, her body, for the whole night through. To keep it out of reach when the zombies came after— after the gunshot.

More silence. More words left unspoken. More seconds ticking by, faster and faster.

The beech and the petrol station appeared in Five's cam. It was hard for him to see them as more than a blur, but the tree itself had cams on it, pointing out from outstretching branches. They gave an amazing view of the countryside for miles, and of Five racing towards it, wrist still dripping scarlet.

"Sam, anything to look out for?"

"Besides dead branches? No. No zombies for at least a mile. The ones from town got bored a while ago, and no others have caught sight of you."

"Alright..." Five coughed, a great hacking thing that sounded painful. Her voice was even rougher when she spoke again, "Alright. Have—have you commed anyone? Janine? Paula?"

Sam went cold, "No. I haven't. Is there someone you want me to get? I can do it."

"No. I don't want anyone to come. I don't want anyone to—" Five cut off with another fit of coughing, when it subsided, she said, "I don't want anyone to hear this. I wish you didn't have to, either."

"I'm so sorry, Five."

"It's not your fault." She said, and when he didn't leap to agree she said it again, "It isn't, Sam, and if you go on thinking it is I’m going to punch you through this bloody radio."

He smiled, just barely, "That'd be interesting, wouldn't it? Just a fist appearing though the headset to hit me right in the ear?"

"You’d deserve it! You can't spend the last hour of my life feeling sorry for yourself. That's my job, as the person who's dying, yea?" Five managed to say it all without coughing, but as soon as she finished another fit came. Still, she didn't stop running, her steps didn’t even falter. She disappeared from view beneath the beech. All its cameras pointed out, and Five's was pointed at its trunk.

"You do have the right to corner that particular market, I suppose." He said, watching as she placed her backpack gently on the ground, where it would easily be retrieved. For a moment he was terrified Five would take off the headset too, but she didn't. He was treated to a view of flailing branches and leaves as she started to climb, her wrist flashing in and out of view.

"I would," she said, "If I was actually sorry, but I'm not. That's another important thing, right? No regrets. Right now would be... a bad time to have them."

"Yea but, if you do, it's alright to share, Five. I'm here. I'll listen, no matter what."

"I know." Five was quiet after she said that, or as quiet as one could be climbing a tree and stifling coughs, she didn't speak again until she'd found a place to sit, wedged tightly in a fork just off the main trunk. It was a good spot, really. There was a gap in the leaves. The countryside stretched out in all its glory. With the way the setting sun hit the rolling fields of greenery, the grass looked almost gilded. It was beautiful, comforting. He felt something begin to crack inside of him at the sight. Or maybe not begin, it seemed too deep to be new. Maybe he was just noticing it now.

She spoke again, after another minute had passed with them admiring the scene, "I'm not a talker. Never have been. That's why I wrote it all down."

"Wrote it down?"

"Yea. I... I wrote everything down. Everything I wanted to say if—if this happened," she whispered, "In my room, under the bed. There's a shoebox. Has a bunch of letters in it. Two are to everyone, and then there's a few just for some people. You have one, Maxine, Jodie, my mom… you get the idea."

"Yea. Yea, I do. I'll make sure that gets taken care of, Five."

"Lucy."

"What?"

"Lucy. Just— I'm not running anymore. I won't run again. So just call me Lucy. Just for a bit, alright?"

The sun wasn't going to set for an hour at least, but he felt a shadow fall across him, felt the chill. That was probably why he was shivering; the unexpected cold.

"Right. Lucy. Sorry."

"It's alright. I've liked being Five. A lot, actually. Despite everything." Her voice never rose above a whisper. It was almost soothing. "That's in the letter, but... I just wanted to say it."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"Yea, I know. I just, wish I had something more to say, something meaningful. But all I can think is..." She trailed off into more coughing, but even when it passed she didn't start again.

Sam’s voice was very gentle, "What are you thinking?"

"Same thing anyone else would think, probably," she bit out, "That this is horrible and awful and I don't want to leave you all behind but I _will_ —" She almost stopped the sob, but it escaped, and when it did Sam realized she'd managed to go that far without crying. Without breaking down. He also noticed his own silent tears for the first time, cold against his cheeks. He was trembling more now, shaking apart at the seams.

"You're not leaving us behind, not at all. You—"

"Yea I am. I'm letting all of you down. I know how much you rely on me. How much everyone does, and I'm just... leaving."

She sounded so disappointed, in herself? In the world? He wasn't sure, but he was suffocating, drowning and he had absolutely no idea what to say because, "You're really worried about us? You're—you're _dying_ and you're thinking about how everyone else will feel about it?"

"Of course. Why do I need to worry about myself? I'll be dead in an hour. But you won't. You can't. You're safe." She didn't sound bitter, not at all. She should have, Sam thought. There shouldn't have been a way for her to sound so comforted by the unfairness of it all.

"I just wanted to be around to keep you that way. To keep Abel safe, yea? I... I did a pretty good job at it, I thought."

"You do."

"I did." There was a sharpness to her voice now. A terrifying sharpness, because he knew what was going to happen before she even spoke again, "But it's time for me to stop. Even if... I don't want to."

She reached up, her red wrist entering the view for the first time in several minutes. It was turning grey at the edges.

"Fiv— Lucy. Please don't—"

Her headcam flicked off, the screen going dark, but he could still hear through her headset. The wind, her breath. It was so uneven now.

"You don't have to do this, a few more minutes surely. Just a few. It can't... it can't be over yet. It hasn't been long enough." The words flooded out. He heard a stifled sob, although he was never sure whose it was.

"There's not going to be a long enough. Not with this."

"I know but it hasn't—"

"I'm sorry."

"Surely you can w—"

"I can't. If I do, I might turn and I can't. I can't, Sam."

The wind rustled the leaves, the sound feather soft.

"I'm so sorry."

A bird chirped from somewhere in the branches, agonizingly cheerful.

"Goodbye."

The mic went dead, and Sam could do nothing but stare at the blank screen, white noise buzzing in his ears and unspoken words burning in his throat.


End file.
